What Needs to Change.
If we want more capable, diverse, risk‑literate boards, the legal profession must change its habit and chairs and headhunters must change their expectations.
Lawyers must broaden early
Senior lawyers need exposure beyond the legal lane long before they seek NED roles. This means:
- Taking on cross functional responsibilities
- Joining internal sub boards
- Building financial literacy “Lawyers who think “the numbers aren’t my job” put themselves at a real disadvantage.”
- Pursuing governance qualifications “Governance comes naturally to me, so I sometimes underestimate its value. But board colleagues often treat my observations as insightful when to me they’re just obvious.”
- Saying “yes” to operational challenges rather than protecting risk boundaries
As one NED put it: “Stop saying no. Start saying yes, safely. You will think you are too busy to take these things on whilst you’re still in your executive career. If a FTSE100 CEO can sit on another board, so can you.”
Headhunters must rethink the stereotypes
Board practices must abandon the lazy equivalence of ‘legal’ with ‘narrow.’ Chairs should reassess risk literacy as a core competence. Risk is now as important as audit.
The UK’s obsession with pigeonholing, one interviewee argued, is “a waste of talent. It’s bad practice to rule someone out because they 'used to be a lawyer', but committees and clients still do it. So candidates must take control of their narrative. Stay in regular contact with the headhunters, each only sees a slice of the market so there’s some shoe leather to wear. Give something back: offer to speak at events or support their initiatives.”
Chairs must recognise the value of difference
A board composed solely of CEOs and CFOs is one decision away from groupthink. As one NED quipped “If everyone is in the industry, I’m scared witless.” Generalists and outsiders often provide the most disruptive, constructive challenge. “Most CEOs want someone safe, discreet, and unvested, a place where they can say privately: 'I’m worried about this and I’m not sure what to do.' CFO NEDs can be that in some situations, but they can also have vested interests. A GC‑type as an NED can be a genuine safe harbour. Half the time, executives already know the answer, they just need someone to talk at until they hear themselves say it.”
Another FTSE100 NED confided that in certain scenarios “your former CEO NED might approach everything needing to win. Lawyers aren’t like that, they can be useful to sound-out solutions before sounding out a full board. And for a Chair, it can be useful to have someone around the table who can be a safe-space if they have doubts about groupthink, bad behaviour or misconduct.”
“One of the nicest compliments I ever received from a board colleague was that “as a lawyer, you’re used to getting a consensus. You manage to leave conversations with everyone left thinking they’d won”. Other Board profiles aren’t so focused on this. The best lawyers, certainly from my area of practice, don’t have huge egos.”
The GC to NED pipeline must strengthen
Companies should deliberately prepare high potential legal leaders for future NED roles, by giving them board exposure, ensuring they attend meetings, and supporting external appointments.
“In my final executive role I told them to give me two years to consolidate and then I wanted to pursue NED roles. I spent that two year period building relationships with every NED I’d ever come across, especially chairs, and treated it as deliberate preparation.”
And finally, is it actually for you?
Soul search. Not every GC is suited to the boardroom, just as not every CFO or CEO is. Some profiles are more obvious than others and for others it’s just not the natural domain. “we’re not talking about a total cadre of people. Many former lawyers just won’t be suited to it. Some in-house lawyers I know genuinely ARE risk averse and lacking in commercial adventure. Some fear being blamed for decisions because they have never had to live with the consequences. Ask yourself, is the exposure of the board really for you?”
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